Goodear

Oh good, I'm not the only one who doesn't remember their ballot. Lots of people down on ole Hitman in here. Don't understand that personally but what will be will be. The best that ever be. Fat guys are not getting their due this round with Tenta, OMG and Yoko all going out. Clearly a style bias against fat guys by the lucha libre contingent. Sorry they didn't have on masks! GOSH!

Garvin was all entrance and gimmick. Similar to Finn Balor today. YEAH I SAID IT! I thought the Hayes and Garvin Freebirds were supposed to be sucky, windbag, give the fans as little as possible heels. YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH.

You have to figure with the single elimination nature of the tournament, you can't load up too hard or you will end up making your crowd want the guys who are already eliminated. Throwing in a few guys who will be solid but not spectacular is a solid strategy.

I kind of misunderstood the thing with the guy, I wasn't the high voter on anyone yet. So... I guess I will keep Mikey for the time being.

I missed having a Bunkhouse avatar by that much. Look how upset Mikey is!

I mean if you are about the 'pure sports build' I don't see an issue presenting chant cues like that since it is so common in regular sporting events. No one really looks at "Make some noise" tron stuff the major sports do as talking down to the crowd.

The Gymini

Word.

514 - Mike Jackson 2006 Ranking: unranked Points: 17 # of Ballots: 2 Average Vote: 92.50 High Vote: 88 (Matt D) Low Vote: 97 I have to admit I read this as Matt Jackson at first and almost had a heart attack.

If he could have worked those mounted rabbit punch elbows into a finish, I think we would be able to put the match on a higher tier. As it was, I think Austin came off as the worst performer on the card (which, stop to think about that, holy shit) because he isn't particularly sympathetic and if he would have been able to turn up into that gear from a slower start than we have had a better narrative. His come on face after beating the countout was one of the best uses of facials on the show but Corbin's frustration that he didn't win there was also palpable.

I will try to have more thoughts once I stop dying from an attack rampaging idiocy from every human being I know. Considering the conversation happening elsewhere on the board regarding match structure, I think this show did an outstanding job of having 5 matches having different bones while all of them managed to be good (Corbin-Aries being the lowest man on the totem pole). We went from late 80's tag structure with a modern twist to Corbin working monster control heat segments to strong style strike exchanges to extensive submission work to hate brawl. I think that is what allowed the card to go from good match to good match without completely burning out the crowd because it was not PWG-style 3 hours of the same stuff structure. That such a well built and constructed piece of business came out of the same house that will produce WrestleMania tomorrow is simply stunning.

One of those shows where you get four guys in a room that all agree about everything and it seems like there is nothing particularly interesting about your takes as they don't really deviate from standard 'smart' thought. You guys have charisma and have good production but the content is so standard that it doesn't stand out from the pack. This is not to say you should take positions you don't believe in but when you are going through a massive roster of talent and there's not one real moment of debate, I had to ask myself why I was listening. Also you cut out the entire undercard of the roster and didn't seem to notice and 'bravely' took the position that anyone tall should be fired. There was no sense of perspective or role within the company so it came off as people with very little knowledge (Dash & Dawson don't even look alike for fuck's sake, it makes you look too lazy to do any work when you can't tell them apart) or any real insight. I find your court cases to be a unique idea, but this seemed so shallow.

I love the Moondog name... I don't understand it but I love it. Like didn't that name come originally from Moondog Mayne being some sort of hippy weirdo? How did it become Bayou Monsters?

It was great because the angle didn't really set up what was going to happen but still caught it very well. It came off as being organic and believable. I think Corey may have oversold it a bit selling being unconscious but he story wise didn't have the time to brace for the impact. It felt right though from a production standpoint. I thought the job matches were well done this week with Tucker Knight being a pretty good hot tag. I think his Thez press was a good starting point for him and the clothesline was meaty good. I don't think his gear is helping him right now and he could benefit from something a bit more flattering. Hollis and Skylar are okay as an undercard team but they seem so undersized that I can't see them getting a big chance to succeed. The return of Norman Smiley's swinging bodyslam was pretty epic though. Baron using the Deep Six as a secondary finish is a good thing for him for getting better near falls with it, I think it may be a problem that it sets up from the same place as the End of Days. His promo was good as well, he gets that 'better than wrestling' feeling across very well. The Emma-Dana paring serving as enhancement talent for Asuka even in promos is outstanding and shows how valuable they are even if Dana hasn't been able to work for months. She's really been a highlight despite a stuttering start. I really feel like she gets it on a pretty high concept level. Bull being cut might prove to be a blessing in disguise. I think he'll be able to parlay his WWE work into a good independent run. His size will be more of a asset on the smaller scene regardless.

I have Big Bossman at 49 which is probably pretty high for most folks and Kana at 61 who I haven't heard a lot of buzz about.

Ted's billed at 6'3" so only comparative to the giants of WWF is he a little guy. He works as a Hogan opponent the same way that a Paul Orndorff or Randy Savage would. He kind of worked small like a Dustin Rhodes in that he didn't typically physically dominate because he was working big guys typically even in World Class as Watts tended to like the bigger dudes. Speaking of which, I think Punk sort of worked larger than he was and could have been in a Roddy Piper-esque position in WWF in the 80s as the motor mouth douche. I can certainly imagine him hosting a Punk's Pit and being over in a setting where he got to talk a lot which is the key component to success in the 80s. He certainly could have worked Flair in the NWA with minimal effort as a counter culture adversary.

CM Punk is also a malcontent who wouldn't be happy unless he was pushed as King of the Shits. I would actually recommend Ray Traylor who worked up and down the card in WWF from top of the card heel, to heel tag team worker with Akeem, to sidekick to the champ as Hogan's buddy during the Earthquake feud, and midcard face working non title programs which still got over. Guy could sell his ass off to the point he could work underneath smaller guys (like Ted) and obviously put over monster heels like Vader while still man up and walk tall. He was also a good bully heel who could manhandle little dudes and bring the hate with the nightstick gimmick. The guy even worked as a job guy in NWA and as the silent bodyguard gimmick with Jim Cornette. Finally you have his bombastic cartoon super villain run as SWAT Team Bossman where you might think it was dumb (it WAS) but still his performance was clearly what the character called for being dramatically over-the-top.

I learned that I really don't like stuff from other countries no matter what I try. I'm a WWE/WWF/NWA guy and I think I just need to make peace with that, watch what I like and stop trying to force guys onto my list because of their reputations. Either I would end up rating people I didn't care for due to their reputations (which seems intellectually dishonest) or I could bite the bullet and vote for Hacksaw Duggan and Bunkhouse Buck. I did the latter.

Yay voting. Whooo hooo.

I think one of the major issues we have with Angle is that he never became the wrestler we thought he should be and it colored our impression of the worker he was. I have done the same thing to CM Punk personally where I want him to be the male equivalent of Asuka when he wasn't going to be that. Everyone had this thought in their brain that Angle should be this mat dominant amateur style wiz and he never worked that way regardless of where he was. He was this bomb thrower and we need to discuss him based on that rather than our mental picture of him (which would probably be Chad Gable). I also think Bruiser Brody falls into a similar issue.

How could you see the ring from all the people "going to the bathroom"? Shockingly, there was not a mass exodus noticeable. Goofy spoiler writing guy making stuff up!

I'm very American-centrc in my tastes so my list has lots of WWE/WCW representation... anyway. Brock, Cena, Dustin, Cesaro, Owens, Zayn, Jericho, Samoa Joe, Bubba Ray Dudley, Mark Henry

They could totally be Samoa Joe's Team Taz walking him out as part of his entrance in warm up suits emphasizing his legitimate air.

NXT using 2-out-of-3 as their go to feud ending match is one of my favorite things about the promotion. I just love how they use it so well in order to put a final stamp to show off who is supreme. There was also a lumberjack match between Neville and Bo Dallas back a while ago which also did a really good job of moving into a Neville-Tyler Breeze angle where the lumberjacks played in mostly straight since they were mostly enhancement talent. I love that NXT moves against the 'more, more, more' standard and downshifts effectively.

Personally I thought that Will keeping the microphone in his nose was the funnier angle.